The White House says it made only minimal changes to the now-discredited talking points used to discuss the deadly attack last year on a U.S. diplomatic post in Benghazi, Libya.

The remarks, by White House press secretary Jay Carney, came in response to an ABC News exclusive on Friday that detailed changes to a memo used by U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice to discuss the deadly Sept. 11, 2012, attack in the days after it happened.

Rice's remarks on several Sunday morning talk shows days after the attack, in which she wrongly characterized them as germinating from protests sparked by a YouTube video offensive to Muslims, have long been called out by Republicans and were fodder for the 2012 campaign.

On Friday, ABC reported that it had obtained 12 different versions of the talking points contained in a series of emails "that show they were extensively edited as they evolved from the drafts first written entirely by the CIA to the final version distributed to Congress and to U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice before she appeared on five talk shows the Sunday after that attack."

At a news conference on Friday, Carney disputed the assertion that the emails reveal substantive changes at the behest of the White House or State Department.

He said the only edit to the talking points made at the request of the administration was "a matter of nonsubstantive factual correction" that involved changing the word "consulate" in reference to the U.S. compound in Benghazi to "diplomatic post".

Carney also reiterated that President Obama, in his first public remarks on the attack, referred to it as an "act of terror."

However, the emails reportedly show excised references to al-Qaida and Ansar al-Sharia, the group ultimately blamed for the attack.

"The concern was the points not provide information that was speculative," Carney told reporters. He said that at the time, it was only speculation that Ansar al-Sharia was involved and that the administration did not know that "concretely."

The talking points were originally written for Congress. But before Congress got them, references were deleted to terrorism by the intelligence community, and to prior warnings of a possible attack.

ABC reports that an email from State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland shows that she was "concerned" that a section of the talking points saying the U.S. could not rule out that the attackers "previously surveilled U.S. facilities" would be "abused by members [of Congress] to beat up the State Department for not paying attention to warnings, so why would we want to feed that, either?"

I watched most of that interview as it happened. I wonder what planet Carney is living on?

FWIW, it looked like a lot of the reporters were incredulous with his answers, but they couldn’t come to actually start asking him the kind of questions that would make him mad. I think they love their position so much that the soft pedal any hard questions so they can maintain that position.

I thought a couple of the reporters wanted just tell Carney that he was an idiot for thinking he could tell them “no substantive changes were made” to the talking points by the White House or State Dept.

8
posted on 05/10/2013 2:51:20 PM PDT
by Bryan24
(When in doubt, move to the right..........)

they love their position so much that the soft pedal any hard questions so they can maintain that position.

IOW, their careers hang in the balance and they credibly believe if they push too hard with their questions, so as to make someone in the administration mad, they could easily get fired with one phone call to their boss.

IOW, they are content to act as if they're journalists when in fact, they're knowingly part of a corrupt political system that very effectively stifles criticism while paying them six-figure salaries and expense accounts.

They get away with crap like this because the low information voter is completely unable to tell The Big Lie when it is being used. This guy uttered one big lie after another and just kept repeating it so perhaps even he thought it was the truth....maybe that is why the press meeting was delayed for two hours or more, he had to recall those sentenses by rote. The answer to the question: you say there were two minor word usage changes but there were 11 revisions of the entire news release with complete areas removed, how does that square? was responded to with some mumbo jumbo about various agencies having input, as usual. It was so orweillian, I had to turn it off.

I wasnt involved in the talking points process.... As I understand it, as Ive been told, it was a typical interagency process where staff, including from the State Department, all participated, to try to come up with whatever was going to be made publicly available, and it was an intelligence product.

With all due respect,the fact is we had four dead Americans. Was it because of a protest or was it because of guys out for a walk one night who decided to go kill some Americans? What difference at this point does it make?Hillary Clinton

Benghazi Jay's ears can't believe the bs he is spreading at this outhouse press mugging conference.

"With new details emerging in the Benghazi-gate controversy, the White House held a background discussion with more than a dozen news organizations. Shown below is Herr Obozo pleading with his out house mediots to save his butt!"

34
posted on 05/11/2013 7:11:38 AM PDT
by Grampa Dave
('How empty and dead' were they to let Chris Stevens, one of them , die for 'Obama-Clinton fiction?')

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